Lincoln Letter Presented to Phila Congregation

A letter and a commission signed by Abraham Lincoln appointing Rabbi Joseph Frankel, first cantor of Rodeph Shalom Synagogue, this city, a chaplain in the Union Army Hospital of Philadelphia during the Civil War, was turned over today to District Attorney Fox for presentation to the congregation.

Mr. Fox, who is president of the congregation, the oldest reform synagogue in this city, and Edward Davis, the congregation’s historian, discovered the documents recently in New York where descendants of the late Rabbi Frankel live.

The letter and commission, at the direction of Joseph Frankel, son of the dead rabbi, are to be framed and given to the congregation. Rabbi Frankel, who died in 1887, had been affiliated with Rodeph Shalom Synagogue for thirty-eight years. He was a close personal friend of Lincoln. He came to this city in 1848 from Bavaria, where he was born in 1808.

There will also be presented to the synagogue letters from officers and soldiers, patients in the hospital during the Civil War. Some of these letters are from the front, and contain descriptions of battles. The presentation will be made on Memorial Day, May 30.